The present invention relates to an ultrasonic diagnosis device, an ultrasonic image processing device, and an ultrasonic image processing method for supporting intuitive grasp of a complex wall motion due to a multi-layered structure of a cardiac muscle, for example, by overlapping and displaying gauges divided between inner and outer membranes of a heart with an ultrasonic image when strain is observed using the ultrasonic image.
It is very important in diagnosing a biological tissue such as a cardiac muscle to objectively and quantitatively estimate functions of the biological tissue. In recent years, a variety of quantitative estimation methods were tried mainly for the heart.
For example, a technique called speckle tracking of calculating local wall motion information such as displacement and strain while locally matching patterns in an image has been put into practice (for example, Patent Document 1). For example, as described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-175041, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2007-117611, and the paper of Osaka City University, written by Ogawa et al., Am J Cardiol 2006; 98: 1531-1538, a strain gauge display method of displaying a “strain gauge” connecting a pair of two points for measurement of strain using the speckle tracking was suggested.
However, in the past display of strain gauge, only the movement state of a segment between two points connecting an inner membrane position and an outer membrane position is expressed and thus the motion information of the cardiac tissue obtained therefrom is limited. Accordingly, it was not possible to observe the detailed wall motion in which the cardiac muscle having a multi-layered structure is divided into the inner membrane side and the outer membrane side.